Get Ready...

During the party, I had taken the role of being the chaperone fairly seriously. I had a couple beers, but nothing that would have knocked me for a loop. Everyone else had put away quite a few, even my mom. As a result, I wasn't surprised to hear the house was deathly quiet when the sun woke me up around 9 am. Even Farah was out like a light, snoring quietly into my chest. I carefully extricated myself from her octopus-like limbs and made my way to the bathroom to make myself feel more human with a shower and a shave. Side benefit to being the first one up, the bathrooms were all empty, and there was plenty of hot water. If I had waited for the horde downstairs to start moving, it might've be a long time before a bathroom opened up.

Dressed and refreshed, I took over the kitchen. Setting the coffee maker to work, I also got out the headache medicine and began making a big batch of scrambled eggs, bacon, and cinnamon rolls. Not only was it a nice thing to do for my sisters on their actual birthday, but these high school kids probably didn't have a good hangover cure routine yet. Sure, they probably THINK they do, but my greasy big breakfast system has been thoroughly tested. And sports drinks, couldn't forget about those.

Just like clockwork, the building scents started to rouse the rest of the house. My mom came down first, and made a beeline to the coffee maker, "Oh, thank you honey. I haven't had a night like that in a while."

Farah came down shortly after, freshly showered but grumbling about a messed up morning routine.

"Morning dear!" I chirped in the way is like nails on a chalkboard to people with hangovers. Hey, a guy's gotta have fun.

Eventually the girls all found their way into the showers and then trooped down into the kitchen and descended on the food like a swarm of locusts.

"For those of you joining Farah and I down at State U, I've got some recommendations for restaurants to hit after big nights," I told them as they ate, "Food like this will help get you back to feeling normal quicker."

By the time breakfast was over, it was actually after noon, and the girls needed to start getting home. Everyone hugged everyone goodbye, then Naomi, Jun, Jane, and Taylor grabbed their coats and got into Naomi's car for the trip back to their respective families. They had all wanted to stay and be there for the twins, but Gwen and Beth opted out, preferring to keep it just family. Farah perked up at that. Even the twins already considered her family. The girls made Gwen and Beth promise to call them once they knew anything as the car backed out of the driveway.

With their friends gone, we let the twins pick how they wanted to spend the last couple hours before they turned eighteen. I was not surprised when they raided the game closet again. Gwen came out with Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit, whereas Beth went to her mainstays of Risk and Monopoly. My mom and I didn't even try to suppress our groans, much to the twins' delight. Farah didn't know it, but she was about to get rocked. Neither twin had lost their game of choice in at least five years.

...And their streak continued. I got close in Trivial Pursuit, while Mom almost caught Gwen in Scrabble. Beth almost got shocked in Risk when Farah managed to gain an early foothold in Australia, but the dice failed her down the stretch. Once again, starting a land war in Asia proved costly. Monopoly... that was another thing altogether. The twins put on a gleeful clinic. I got bounced early, and though Farah and Mom limped around the board avoiding the girls' properties for a while, their luck ran out.

Gwen was slowly getting strangled out when I looked at the clock, and realized just how much time had gone by, "I hate to break this up girls, but we might want to pause the game."

Their gulps were audible from across the room.

"It's okay girls, we'll finish this up later. I want to see if Gwen can pull this one out," Farah cheered.

"Thanks for paying attention to the clock John," Mom said, before turning to the twins, "Gwen, Beth, I'm going to do the obnoxious mom thing. Let me take some pictures of you before you go upstairs and get changed."

As my mom and Farah snapped away with their phones, and the girls', Gwen asked, "Changed?"

"Let's just say it would be better to be wearing loose fitting clothing."

"Good idea Stacy," Farah agreed, "John can you loan them each one of your shirts and basketball shorts?"

"Yeah sure. Come on ladies. Because it's your birthday, I'll even give you clean stuff."

The girls were clearly nervous, as they didn't fire back at me with the usual sarcasm.

Shortly afterwards, Gwen and Beth came back down the stairs positively swimming in my clothes. We chatted idly, just trying to fill the silence, until all of a sudden the grandfather clock in the living room began chiming, followed by all five of our cell phone alarms. Four o' clock was here. The girls were about to get the answer to the question that they had worried about for months.